Mesoamerican migration accounts often state that Tollan was ruled by Quetzalcoatl (or Kukulkan in Yucatec and Q'uq'umatz in K'iche'), a godlike mythical figure who was later sent into exile from Tollan and went on to found a new city elsewhere in Mesoamerica.

Claims of Toltec ancestry and a ruling dynasty founded by Quetzalcoatl have been made by such diverse civilizations as the Aztec, the Quiché and the Itza' Mayas.

In Aztec legend, there is not one supposed Toltec ruler identified with Quetzalcoatl, but two: the first ruler and founder of the Toltec dynasty, and the last ruler, who saw the end of the Toltec glory and was forced into humiliation and exile.

The first is described as a valiant triumphant warrior, but the last as a feeble and self-doubting old man.

This caused scholars such as Michel Graulich (2002) and Susan D. Gillespie (1989) to suggest that the general Aztec cyclical view of time, where events repeated themselves at the end and beginning of cycles or eras, was being inscribed into the historical record by the Aztecs, making it futile to attempt to distinguish between a historical Topiltzin Ce Acatl and a Quetzalcoatl deity.

The second Toltec Quetzalcoatl supposedly fled in 986 from Tula to …